The Off Season (6 page)

“And the rest is history,” Harris finished for her, his voice gentle.

She nodded, her mouth tightening.

“And what about that other guy? The one who’d invited you on the trip?” Though Harris was only guessing the friend had been male, he saw from her expression he’d been right.

“We were friends, that’s all. Besides, that was years ago.”

“Any other boyfriends? Disappointed guys? Past lovers?”

Her spine straightened, and two pink patches stained her cheeks. “No one who’d bother coming after me, especially back here in New Jersey. And I certainly wasn’t—I never ran around on my husband, if that’s what you’re getting at. Not everyone’s the cheating kind.”

Her tone stung like a hard slap. What the hell had his ex told her about him? Wasn’t the truth damning enough?

“Listen, Christina,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “I wasn’t saying you had. But I have to ask these questions if you really want to get to the bottom of what’s going on, and make sure you and your child are both safe.”

“Of course,” she said, her hands tightening around the white mug. “But I have nothing to say about my sex life. Mostly because there’s absolutely nothing to report.”

He nodded, thinking she was being honest, even though he knew he was likely the last person in the world she’d want to speak to on the subject.

“Your husband left an estate, I’m guessing,” he said cautiously. “Beyond the car, I mean?”

She hesitated before admitting, “Doug’s practice was quite successful, and there was some family money, too, an inheritance that had all come down to him as an only child.”

“I see,” Harris said, letting it sink in that since he’d last seen her, the gap between the two of them had only widened. Other than Fiorelli, who’d felt shafted when Harris was offered the open chief’s position two years back after only a short time on the force, and the newest city councilman, he had the respect of the community. A decent salary, too, far better than the crumbs his old man had always worked for, when he could hold on to a job. To her, though, his life—a new life he’d built upon the wreckage of his old one—must seem like nothing, though he couldn’t imagine why he would give a damn what she thought. He only knew that he did, as screwed up as that was.

“So this inheritance,” he went on. “You squabble with the family for your share?”

“I don’t know which is more offensive,” she said, pushing back from the table and coming to her feet. “Your insinuations that I’ve been involved with some coworker, or that I screwed around on my husband, or that I fought over money like some kind of a gold digger.”

He stood as well, realizing he could have phrased his question a hell of a lot better. “I wasn’t trying to suggest—”

“Save your questions for your suspects, not me. Get out there and—I don’t know—go take fingerprints or something,” she demanded. “Unless maybe you have your own issues with people you think have more than you.
Still.
”

Temper throbbing in his temples, he said, “I’m not some eighteen-year-old kid anymore,
Dr.
 Paxton. I’m an experienced cop, doing my job on no damn sleep for your benefit and safety. And all I ask in return is a little cooperation and some honest answers. Not some ridiculous old grudge you’ve been nursing since—”

“Trust me, Harris,” she warned, her eyes boring into his, “you don’t want to go there. But I’ll tell you where you can go. Out the door right now. Because we’re definitely done.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Harris leaned against the door frame and stared straight into her eyes. “Not yet. I’m not going. We aren’t finished.”

Heart thumping wildly, Christina stared back, half-surprised that it had taken so long for her polite facade to crack.

“All right,” he said. “This is how we’re gonna do things. I’ll head outside and make sure everything’s being handled as best it can. And if I think of any more questions for you, I’ll send in Fiorelli or, if you’d prefer a woman, Officer Zarzycki.”

“Either will be fine.”
As long as it’s not you.

“And one more thing before I go,” he told her. “I know you’re under stress. Just like I know it’s uncomfortable, the two of us meeting again all these years later. But I swear to you I’m going to find whoever scared you tonight and damaged your car, no matter where the search leads. Or how much you’d like to stab me with a handful of syringes.”

The sincerity in his voice made her feel small for having berated him when he’d offered nothing except kindness since his arrival.

“Thanks,” she managed, the word rough with emotion.

She could still feel the pounding beneath her breast, all these years since the night she’d dredged up the courage to admit her feelings to him. After he’d made love to her so tenderly, with a reverence in his eyes that had quieted her doubts about the suddenness of his attention. But the intensity of her own feelings, the desire to blow off her scholarship and stay in Seaside Creek with him, had scared her even more. How could she stand to be away from him, she’d wondered, hours away in Massachusetts?

“Love me?” he’d scoffed, his face transformed by a mocking sneer. “Let’s not get crazy. This was just a little summer fun to see you off, that’s all.”

She felt sick, remembering the burn of her humiliation, the way he’d never called her—not one time after that night. Worse yet was the malice she’d heard in his words, the certainty that she’d been deliberately set up . . . out of spite, she had eventually understood when she’d heard a rumor that he’d been competing for the same scholarship she’d been awarded. A scholarship that had been his only shot at getting out of Seaside Creek to attend college.

He nodded an acknowledgment of her thanks. Then he headed through the front door without a backward glance.

Unsettled by their conversation, Christina took her coffee upstairs and checked on Lilly again. In spite of having been wakened earlier, her daughter was already stirring, her tiny body gearing up for another hundred-megawatt morning.

Her vision swimming with exhaustion, Christina sighed, imagining all that energy unleashed upon the household, from demands for potty and breakfast, to whatever outfit Christina hadn’t gotten around to washing. And then there was her shift today, the stream of patients who needed and deserved her full attention. How was she even going to get there, with her tires destroyed and her car—the car she remembered Doug hand-waxing so lovingly on weekends—now an obscenity on wheels?

Hanging her head, she felt her breath hitch, followed by the burn of all the emotion she’d been holding back for so long. Tears leaked past her defenses, prompting her to head into the bathroom, where neither Lilly nor any of the officers could spot her weeping.

Sometime later there was a knock from downstairs, followed by the sound of someone coming inside. Wiping her face with a wad of tissues, she held her breath, dreading the thought of facing Harris with her red eyes and blotchy face.

Her name floated up the stairwell. “Christina? Christina, are you okay?”

Renee. Christina sent up a prayer of thanks. Was it six fifteen already?

Rising from the bed where she’d been sitting, Christina called, “I’m in my room. Come on up.”

“Just a sec,” Renee said, and Christina heard the buzz of conversation downstairs. A tense conversation, judging from the sharpness of her friend’s voice. “What on earth’s wrong with you, Harris? You should’ve called me right away so I could be here for her.”

Christina couldn’t make out Harris’s reply, only its low tone. But whatever he said seemed to tick off his ex-wife even more.

“Of course it didn’t occur to you that she might need her best friend. Here, take your son, and let me—”

The rest was lost in the echo of her feet coming up the stairs. Making a beeline toward the master bedroom, Renee stopped in the doorway, concern written on her face.

“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry,” she said before rushing forward and squeezing Christina in a hug. “I would’ve come if I’d known. No matter what the time.”

Christina sucked in a shaky breath, struggling to keep from dissolving into tears once more. “I have to—I can’t miss my shift.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re calling in sick. Harris told me you’ve been up all night. You have to get some rest.”

“But Lilly will be up soon. I can’t just—”

“I’ll stay, of course, and watch the kids. And after a while, if you want, I’ll take them over to the Kid Zone.”

The Kid Zone was an indoor party place, with ball pits, climbing structures, indoor mazes. One of those places where you could buy the kind of food and drink guaranteed to amp up preschoolers, then burn off their excess energy while you sat there wishing you’d brought earplugs.

“Would you?” Christina asked, her vision going watery with gratitude. “That’d be great. Then I can call the phone company and my insurance and the owners and then—”

“Sleep’s your first priority, after I get a decent breakfast in you.”

Christina shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry. And I’m sure the police have more questions. I should go down and see if Harris needs—”

“Harris can darn well wait. Or go find himself a suspect in his old stomping grounds. I swear, those Swamp’s End people let their brats run wild, then act all surprised when they get themselves in trouble.”

Christina couldn’t help cringing at Renee’s reference to Creekbend, which the locals had been calling Swamp’s End since as far back as she remembered. A low-lying area prone to mosquitoes, floods, and poverty, it had picked up uglier names during its decades-long downhill slide.

She recalled that Harris had lived there in an asphalt-shingled bungalow her school bus had passed each weekday before the horrific rollover accident that had claimed both his parents’ lives during her freshman year of college. Like every kid from her neighborhood, with its neatly kept older houses and its air of respectability, she’d absorbed the unspoken rule that you didn’t bicycle over to play anywhere around there, that you stuck to your own side of the bridge unless you were a member of that fiercely proud and tightly knit tribe.

And you didn’t bring up that past, either, especially not when at least one person around here found you obnoxiously well off. She pursed her lips at the thought, wondering if Harris could be right about the reason behind the damage to her car.

As terrible as the thought was, she clutched gratefully at the possibility, finding it far easier to accept than the idea that she’d really heard her birth mother in the house. This morning, with the weak winter sun edging over the lip of the Atlantic, the idea seemed impossible. As impossible as the thought of her daughter channeling messages from beyond the grave.

And if it was stress that was causing such delusions, Christina told herself she had a responsibility to do something to clear her head. And do it before she became a danger to her patients . . . or her daughter.

“You’re right. I’m calling in,” Christina said, hoping the crusty veteran nurse in charge of ER scheduling wouldn’t take it out on her for the next six months. “But I’ll head downstairs first. I want to thank Harris and the officers.”

“Just make the call,” Renee said, looking pleased that her bossiness had had the desired effect, “and I’ll get started on the pancakes. Or would you rather I made eggs or waffles?”

Christina frowned, irritated that Renee had ignored her earlier refusal. And even more annoyed when her stomach gave a growl and Renee grinned triumphantly at her. “All right, so I need to eat. But a yogurt’ll do just fine.”

Renee crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, and Christina felt a stab of her old junior high anxiety under the weight of the queen bee’s disapproval—a status her friend, whose divorced mother had always worked two or three jobs to make ends meet, managed by force of personality alone.

“Fine, then. Waffles would be great,” she managed. “Thanks.”

With Lilly still asleep, both women headed downstairs. Christina was surprised to find Harris sitting on the family-room floor helping his curly-haired son build a tower from the squishy foam blocks Christina’s mother—the mother she selfishly wished would hurry back from the European dream vacation she’d left for earlier this week—had bought Lilly.

Not seeing the women, Harris focused on his son, a genuine smile warming his tired face. But Christina glimpsed a trace of pain, too, possibly from his right leg, which he held straight out before him on the floor.

Or maybe it wasn’t physical discomfort but sadness she was seeing. The sadness of a father relegated to part-time parenting, even if the split had been his doing.

Breaking out in a huge grin, Harris grabbed a plastic pterodactyl and sent it swooping toward the tower with a hawklike cry.

Jacob laughed and clapped his hands, saying, “Knock it, Daddy! Knock it down!”

When the blocks tumbled, both father and son made explosive sound effects and briefly wrestled. Christina smiled, remembering how she and Annie had both loved it when as kids they could coax their adoptive dad—who’d lost his battle with melanoma not long after his granddaughter’s birth—into such rough-and-tumble. She felt a pang, too, remembering how she’d tried to talk Doug into giving Lilly more of his attention.

You forget I’ve been through this twice already,
he’d told her, referring to the children of his first marriage with that indulgent, slightly paternalistic smile that had sometimes made her want to scream
. But don’t worry, I’ll spend plenty of time with Lilly when she grows up enough to get more interesting.

But, for him, that time would never come.

Renee, standing beside her, shook her head and muttered, “Look at him, putting on the Doting Daddy show for you. Where was all that when we lived together? Where was he?”

Though her voice was low, the venom in it must have carried, for Harris whipped his head around to grimace in their direction.

Embarrassed to be caught between them, Christina cleared her throat and asked, “Did your officers get coffee?”

“They did, and they both thank you,” Harris said. “Except I’m afraid you’ve permanently ruined them for the supermarket stuff we brew at the station.”

She forced a smile, grateful he’d chosen to pretend their earlier argument hadn’t happened, then noticed Renee swinging a sharp look her way, clearly considering her friend’s lack of overt hostility a betrayal. She’d have to get over it, Christina decided. She had enough issues with Harris already without being dragged into the ugly aftermath of their divorce. Besides, there was Jacob’s relationship with his father to consider. She hoped Renee could restrain herself from venting her hurt and anger in front of her sweet son.

“Will I be able to have my car repaired?” Christina asked while Harris worked his way to his feet. “Or do you need to run some tests or something?”

“You can go ahead and call your insurance. We’ve already finished taking photos. Prints, too, but I’m not sure if we got anything helpful. When it’s convenient, I’d appreciate it if you can stop by the station, where we’ll fingerprint you for comparison.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll take care of it as soon as I—”

“I’ll bring her over once she’s slept,” Renee cut in, giving her another pointed look. “And I mean
really
slept this time, not just a ten-minute catnap.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Harris conceded. “Meanwhile, we’ll be questioning anyone we can find at home within a three-block radius.”

“That should take all of five minutes,” said Renee, and Christina had to agree, considering all the absentee owners in the historic district.

Harris shrugged. “Still, we’ll do it. And we’ll be checking the security cameras of businesses along the main arteries through town, too, along with a few we’ve set up on our own to try to get on top of—”

“Crimes against poor, pitiful rich people?” Renee asked.

Harris swung a hard look her way. “Crimes against taxpayers in my jurisdiction. Or would you rather I left your friend here a sitting duck for next time some jackass decides to take a screwdriver to her vehicle—or her?”

“Jackass!”
Jacob laughed at the one word he’d homed in on, earning Harris an even blacker look from his ex-wife.

Before things could deteriorate any further, Harris took down Christina’s cell-phone number and told her he’d update her as soon as he knew anything. “Meanwhile,” he added, “we’ll be stepping up patrols in the neighborhood, so don’t be alarmed if you see a department vehicle parked nearby the next few nights.”

Yours again?
she wanted to ask, but instinct warned her not to splash more fuel on the fire of Renee’s animosity. Besides, it didn’t really matter which officer it was, as long as she and Lilly would be safe here, at least from the vandal.

But who could keep her safe from the voice she’d been hearing? A voice she couldn’t entirely stop suspecting had been spun from the darkest reaches of her own scarred mind.